Ishrat case: Guj court reserves order on cop's arrest warrant

A special CBI court in Ahmedabad today reserved its order on a revision application seeking the issuance of arrest warrant against IPS officer PP Pande, who is an accused in the 2004 alleged fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan and three others.

A special CBI court in Ahmedabad on Tuesday reserved its order on a revision application seeking the issuance of arrest warrant against IPS officer PP Pande, who is an accused in the 2004 alleged fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan and three others.

Special CBI Judge Gita Gopi on Tuesday concluded the hearing and said that she would pronounce the order on May 2.

CBI DySP and investigating officer of the encounter case G Kalaimani had submitted a revision application challenging the order, dated April 25, of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) of the CBI court which rejected CBI demand for the issuance of arrest warrant against Additional DGP (Crime) PP Pande.

Pande, a 1980 batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre, was Joint Police Commissioner in Ahmedabad in 2004 when on June 15 that year Ishrat Jahan along with Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed in an encounter.

CBI, in its revision application praying for issuance of arrest warrant for Pande under section 73 of the CrPC, has claimed that the officer has been evading CBI and it has become necessary for the agency to seek court's help.

"We issued two summons, on April 22 and 24 respectively, but he had not responded to it. When we went to his residence at Ahmedabad, his son refused to give us information about Pande's whereabouts and his official mobile phone is also not reachable," said CBI counsel L D Tiwari.

"Under these circumstances, where we could not succeed in getting the custody of Pande for his interrogation, issuance of arrest warrant by the court has become necessary," he said while praying for court's directions to ACJM to issue the arrest warrant.